


The Art of a Wordsmith

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2019 [19]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 15:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21138728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Charley Pollard once decided to write down all of her adventures, her stories. Now she has only one tale left to tell. A tale of rescue: one she desperately hopes will one day come true.





	The Art of a Wordsmith

Charley Pollard had fancied herself a wordsmith, once. It felt like such a long time ago, now. Back on the R101, at the start of everything. Her old life so long ago. So far away. So tiny compared to where she was now. She didn’t even know how old she was anymore. She had spent so long in the TARDIS she had given up trying to remember how old she was in Earth terms, how many days and birthdays had passed since she had officially died, and for the first time started to live.

Charley Pollard had fancied herself a wordsmith, once. An Edwardian Adventuress, chronicling her journeys across the world, from Singapore to the edges of wherever life would take her. Life had taken her so much further than Singapore, however. Life had taken her across the stars, to the past and future, to new worlds, all across the universe, and when the universe had grown too small, life had taken her to a new one. Two entire universes to explore with her friend, the Doctor, and her friend, C’rizz. Both gone now. Two entire universes with literally endless space to explore, and nobody to share it with.

Charley Pollard had fancied herself a wordsmith, once. But now she had nothing to say, and nobody to say it to.

Charley sighed. “I miss you,” she said to the Doctor and C’rizz, hoping it would reach them wherever they were, for there was nobody with her to hear her words. However much good they would do her, even if someone could hear. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know if there was anyone close to her. She didn’t know if there was anyone on the planet at all. And even if there was someone she could reach, somehow, through some desperate miracle, there was no promise they would understand her. She had never learned other languages besides the little French she knew. There was no way she could get by on that. She didn’t know nearly enough French to hold any more than a casual conversation about nothing important. She absolutely could not find her way around a country where everyone spoke French, and she almost certainly would never find her way out to someone she could properly speak to. Not that it really mattered. Even if by some staggering coincidence she had ended up stranded somewhere near another landmass, there was no promise that the people on that landmass - if there were people at all - spoke French either. Charley laughed at herself, bitterly. She was going around in circles. All of her logic ended up in the same place; there was nobody she could reach.

She laughed at herself again. She had gotten so used to freedom. That was what the TARDIS did to you, she reasoned to herself. Naturally she had been taken captive and held hostage and imprisoned in seemingly inescapable situations before, but at the end of every day, she had gotten back in the TARDIS and flown away. Every time. She’d become spoiled. Too accustomed to being able to simply leave when the challenge was over. This was a challenge she couldn’t just fly away from. No means of escape, and nowhere to escape to.

Charley lay back on the sand of her tiny desert island and let herself be overwhelmed for just a minute. She closed her eyes and felt the tears running from them down her cheeks. She thought about the Doctor, and about C’rizz, her best friends, her family, both of whom had died protecting her. She hadn’t even seen the Doctor regenerate, there was no way he was coming back. She had been too distant from C’rizz for too long, and she now regretted the time she hadn’t spent with him. She had held the Doctor’s nature against him for too long, and she now regretted pushing him away as much as she had. She lay still and let the tears flow. She cried for her friends.

She stayed there for a few minutes until the tears dried, then sat back up. She had let herself be upset. She had let herself fall. Now it was time to get up again. Never give in. Her friends had taught her that, and she would be damned before she betrayed that lesson. She assembled the crystal set she had built from the wreckage that washed up with her, and tapped out a message. The same message she had been sending every hour since she had been stranded here. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. SOS.

Charley Pollard had fancied herself a wordsmith, once. Now she sent out the only word she had left, and prayed that somehow, somewhere, someone was listening.


End file.
